Well I’ve not had a great 24 hours that’s for sure.

You know how I’m always rattling on about taking responsibility for things that go wrong?

Well the ultimate responsibility lies with me, so settle down while I tell you the story of The EazyTheme Fiasco.

Basically I know how powerful customizable themes are (I’m using one for this blog) and for a long time I’d wanted to offer one to my readers and subscribers that was both FREE and top quality.

So for the past few months we’ve been working on doing exactly that with EazyTheme.

We knew what we wanted it to do, what we wanted YOU to be able to do with it, and we wanted the personal user license (on unlimited sites) to be absolutely free so the people who needed it most could get it.

So what went wrong?

Well our decision of which coder to hire did.

We hired someone who basically STOLE the sourcecode from a well established and very good WordPress Theme and passed it off as his own work.

We took this coder at his word and because of his good feeback on various freelancing sites.  Big mistake.

I got an email on my iphone last night – unfortunately while I was in bed or I could have acted sooner) from the owner of the theme that our coder had stolen.

(Incidentally the original job spec was totally specific about it being 100% unique and original)

Luckily the marketer who owns the theme is a total professional and could see immediately what had happened.

We’ve sent emails back and forth most of today and not only has he been understanding but he’s offered advice and help.

So the outcome is that we’ve lost a fair chunk of money, a lot of time but worse, the respect and trust of you guys who downloaded the theme.

So here’s my apology.  I’m really sorry for the hassle this has caused you and the inconvenience you’ve been through. I know you’ve invested your time and effort and I really regret we coudln’t follow up with our promises this time.

We are pursuing this ‘coder’ and will continue to do so to prevent him doing this again.

For you it means that you can’t use the theme at all. Sorry.

I can only guess at what a mess this leaves some of you in. If there’s anything I can do, get in touch.

I’ve sent an email out with a free WordPress gift as a poor apology but we also promise to get it right next time and deliver.

So that’s what happened.  It’s been an experience for me. A bad one and an enlightening one.

We start work tomorrow on bringing you something you can actually use. This time we’ll deliver.

Best wishes, and another big ‘sorry’.

Comments welcome as always,

Tony

EDIT: Some of the comments below liked the theme and wanted to know where to get the ‘original’ one from.

Well it’s the Socrates Theme (not an affiliate link). It’s a truly great theme and the man in question who’s been so helpful throughout today is Joel Comm (he even left a comment below)

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